


i've heard of stars beyond the grey skies

by limerental



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Buff Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Is Not a Witcher, Human Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Loss of Virginity, Minor Injuries, Non-Explicit Sex, Witcher Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28800762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limerental/pseuds/limerental
Summary: Witcher Yennefer is fortunate to be rescued by a strong-willed druid boy after suffering a life-threatening injury in the Amell Mountains. She is less fortunate to discover that he is about to become a pain in her backside.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 20
Kudos: 81
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #04





	i've heard of stars beyond the grey skies

**Author's Note:**

> written for witcher quick fic

That year, she is late heading north and then later still, cursing the grey swell of snowbank clouds and the ragged tear of a wyvern’s claw that throbs with telltale infection beneath her ribs. Her game little mare shakes the fat snowflakes from her flaxen mane, soon to lose her usual sure footing on the craggy slopes if the storm worsens, and Yennefer stands in her stirrups to curse more vigorously at the sky or the gods or what have you.

She winces as the movement jars her pulsing wound. She hocks and spits and her phlegm is a stain of red in the fresh spatters of snow.

“Fuck,” she swears. “Oh fuck it all.”

Rotten luck this whole season and now this. No luck more rotten than snow in Nazair. Head south to hunt this year, she had told herself. No more swilling through the stink and muck of the north. Drink sweet wine in the fertile floodland plains. Lie naked under the desert stars. Fight the sort of twisted monsters endemic to the craggy peaks of the Amell Mountains that no man would dare challenge.

Yennefer of Vengerberg is certainly no man.

No woman either by the reckoning of most, though she shares most anatomy with womenfolk. She may have never bled as women do and carries a breadth to her shoulders to rival many young farm boys, but no weak thing dangles soft between her legs. Her wide hips are nicely-curved and breasts well-formed if she were to say so herself.

Not man, not woman, but Witcher. As Other as the beasts that she slays.

Yennefer sways in the saddle and clenches her thighs to steady her balance. A lone vulture careens along the rim of the mountain, sharp primaries cutting through the white emptiness of the sky. Waiting patiently for her mount to slip or for the dark tunnelling at the edge of her vision to win out over her stubborn grasp at remaining conscious. Or both.

Fuck winter and fuck wyverns. Fuck Nazair. The wine had been bitter and the desert skies a lonely plane of nothing. The people suspicious and hostile and the creatures in the hills desperate, starving things that she had felt no joy in putting out of their misery.

Now, she will die here.

The inevitability of it creeps like the scorpions in the crevices of the rocky path. Her only burial will be in a carrion bird’s gullet. Her gravemarker the yellowed bones of her mare.

She does not have long to think on the injustice of it all or dream of better, grander deaths in different lives.

The saddle slips from her.

Yennefer passes into darkness.

* * *

When she wakes, it is to the scent of a cooking fire and beyond that, something herbal and sweet.

She shoves herself up on the worn cot, wincing sharply over the pull along her ribs. Her probing fingers find fresh bandages, a neat ridge of stitches beneath. The wound no longer throbs with the cadence of her heartbeat.

The walls of the dwelling she finds herself in are the russet stone of one of the hollows that honeycomb the Amell Mountains, though she cannot discern if this is a natural cave or one carved by hand. A skylight opens in the ceiling to usher out the smoke from the hearth.

A druid boy sits cross-legged before the fire, his auburn hair falling half-plaited between his shoulderblades. Her pained grunting alerts him to her wakefulness, and he turns to give a little wave.

“Good morning. Didn’t think you’d wake in time for dinner,” he says and rises to stir a pot that hangs above the hearth. “My mother is a better cook, but she’s away on business. You’ll have to settle for me.”

“My mare?” asks Yennefer. Any mount could be replaced, but the swords and other gear strapped to her saddlebags would prove harder to come by.

“Safe and happy down in the stables,” says the druid boy. “An ornery thing though. Nearly took a chunk out of Roach.”

“I hope that’s the name of a horse. Though it’s an unfortunate name either way.”

The druid boy laughs. It is a musical sound, deep and unguarded.

“Mmm, what’s your mare called, then? If you’re so good at naming horses.”

“She doesn’t have need for a name,” says Yennefer. “A Witcher’s horse does not have a lengthy life expectancy. Same as most Witchers.”

“All the better reason to name her,” says the druid boy and ladles out a serving of whatever hangs above the fire into an earthen bowl. He is a willowy thing, gangly and sharp-boned. He brings the steaming bowl to her bedside and offers it cupped in both hands. “My name, by the way, is Geralt.”

He smells of rosemary and honey, dressed in the loose clothing typical of druids.

“I’m Yennefer,” she says. “Of Vengerberg.”

“Hello, Yennefer,” says Geralt. “Are you going to take this or not? My arms are getting tired.”

Yennefer takes the bowl held out to her.

“Do you have the strength of a newborn babe?”

“Not all of us can be as strong as a Witcher.”

“Good thing too. I’d be out of work.”

“Be quiet and eat. That wound took a good bit of my energy to heal. Don’t waste it.”

She eats. It’s a simple stew of rabbit and turnip, flavored with sharp peppercorn. She has eaten nothing but dry rations for weeks, so even such simplistic fare is heavenly. The druid boy sits by the fire with a bowl of his own and does not disguise the way he watches her.

“Druids are not usually so isolated,” she says when the bowl is set aside empty. “There’s hardly a living soul in these blasted mountains. Why live here?”

“You’re the one I found mostly dead on the pass. Why travel here?”

“Touche.”

“My mother prefers to stay on the outskirts of civilization and not get involved in other’s affairs. Less conflict. No politics. We travel sometimes with trade caravans through the summer but always winter here.”

“What would she think of her son bringing home an injured Witcher? There’s certainly conflict to be found getting involved in that.”

“She thinks I’m soft. Too quick to entangle myself.” Geralt shrugs. “But she’ll be gone another fortnight at least.”

“She’s right,” says Yennefer. “You are soft. Soft as a baby bird.”

“I want you to teach me to fight,” says Geralt. “I saved your life. You owe me one.”

“No, little bird,” she says. “I’d snap you like a twig.”

He grins with a stubborn jut of his chin. Cheeky thing.

“And what if I’d like that?”

She arches a thin brow.

“And what would your mother think of _bedding_ a Witcher?”

The druid boy’s heart rate picks up, and he blushes prettily across his freckled cheekbones and to the tips of his ears.

“She may disown me,” he says. “Then you can take me along with you.”

Yennefer lets out a bark of laughter.

“A pretty thing like you wouldn’t last a day on my path. You’d run back to mummy soon as you could. Or get yourself killed.”

“You’d protect me,” Geralt says. “Or teach me to fight.”

“Could you even lift one of my swords?”

His deepening flush told her that he had struggled to do so while untacking her mare.

“A dagger then. I’ll be useful.”

“Why are you so determined to kill yourself, little bird?”

The druid boy puffs up his chest and squares his shoulders. She restrains herself from laughing.

“I want my life to be more than this,” he says. “I want to make a difference.”

“The only difference you will make is breaking your poor mother’s heart.”

“You don’t know my mother,” he says. “I don’t know that she has one. I’m sure if she didn’t need an apprentice, she would have found ways to foist me off on someone.”

“She sounds like a lovely woman,” says Yennefer. “Pity I won’t be sticking around to meet her.”

“She’s done the best that she’s able, I think. I suppose it could have been worse.”

“Trust me, it could have been,” she says. “She could have sold you for less than a market hog.” Rather than allow the mists of memory to condense around her, she settles back on the cot. “Do you have any alcohol around here?”

“My mother thinks drinking is immoral. I’ve never had a drop.”

“Wonderful,” groans Yennefer, wincing over the strain in her wound as she lies back to pillow her head on her raised arm. “Next you’ll tell me you’re a virgin.”

Geralt’s cheeks burn a deeper shade of crimson.

Yennefer huffs in amusement.

“Good night, little bird,” she says. “If you wake me before the sun is up, the only dagger I’ll ever acquaint you with is one in your gut.”

“Of course,” says Geralt. “Does that mean you’ll teach me? Tomorrow?”

“Only if I lose all of my sense through the night,” says Yennefer.

* * *

Yennefer has clearly lost all of her sense through the night.

She widens her stance on the hard-packed ground, watching the druid boy echo her position across from her. His hands and wrists are wrapped for some semblance of protection, and he holds a borrowed dagger in a loose fist.

“It’s not a kitchen knife, little bird. You can’t cut me the same way you cut a turnip.”

“I don’t want to cut you at all,” he says, the dagger lowering. She takes the opportunity to lunge forward and twist it easily from his hand. It falls ineffectively to the dirt.

“What did you think training to wield a dagger would entail? Your enemy won’t be softening their blows. Neither should you.”

“But you aren’t my enemy.”

“Pick up the dagger,” says Yennefer. Geralt obeys, returning to his fighting stance before her. Again, she disarms him in one fluid movement, grasping his bandaged arm.

“This isn’t fair,” he huffs. “You’re stronger than me.”

“Life isn’t fair,” says Yennefer. “If I’m too strong, you have to be quicker. Or smarter.”

The next round ends with Geralt falling back on his tailbone in the dirt, groaning.

“Aren’t you meant to be teaching me something? I don’t feel like I’ve learned a thing.”

“You never asked if I was any good at teaching.”

Their scuffling lasts half the morning, ending with Geralt dirtied and sweating, trembling with exertion as he flops onto his back in the dirt. He’s endured far longer than Yennefer expected, she will give him that. He is a stubborn thing. Just the same, he is lucky not to have met a different Witcher. Any of her sisters would not have softened their blows.

She snags a waterskin and flops down beside him, pressing it against his heaving chest.

“Did you learn anything?” she asks.

“I learned that it’s possible to bruise parts of my body that I didn’t know existed,” he gasps, rivulets running down his throat as he chokes down the water.

“You’ll give yourself a stomachache too if you’re not careful.”

“I asked you to train me, not pummel me all morning.”

“You’d know if I was pummeling you, boy,” says Yennefer. ”I thought maybe you’d give up sooner.” He grins at her, flushed pink.

“Ma says I’m more stubborn than our old mule.”

“That’s not exactly a good thing in a fight. Stubbornness doesn’t keep your guts from spilling in the dirt.”

“So teach me what does,” Geralt says.

“Staying here. Not getting into trouble. Definitely not letting a Witcher pummel you all morning.”

“I told you, I want--”

“More.” Yennefer sighs. “What do you think you’ll find out there? Maidens ready to swoon into your arms after you save them from deadly beasts? Devious villains waiting for you to knock them down a peg?”

“I’m not an idiot. Or a child. There’s no need to talk to me like I am.”

“You’re acting like an idiot and a child,” she says. “There’s nothing out there in the world but suffering. And squalor. And bullshit. You have no idea how good you have it here. Divorced from the worst of civilization.”

Geralt starfishes in the dirt, staring up at the rough ceiling of the cave, his mouth twisted down in a sour grimace. She finds herself wishing that she had something more comforting to tell him. That the outside world is full of dragons and knights and princesses rescued from towers. That there is a version of his story where his stubborn grit would make him a hero and not a corpse in the gutter.

Yennefer has seen things like this play out before. She knows what happens when someone soft like Geralt is confronted with the horrors of her world. They’re either struck down or hardened. She can’t say why, but she doesn’t want to see Geralt lose that downy softness.

Her world is cruel.

She will poison him.

* * *

A better woman than Yennefer would ride away into the night as soon as the druid boy settled into sleep. She would leave a well-honed dagger beside Geralt’s cot, tack her flaxen mare, and ride hard for the north. She would put the boy from her mind and hope he lacked the courage to ever leave the mountains.

But Yennefer is not a woman. She is a Witcher.

So, that evening around the fire, instead of turning aside to sleep after finishing her dinner, she beckons to him. Geralt does not hesitate before crossing to stand before her. No wariness. No knowledge that he should be wary.

Yes, the world would devour him and spit him back mangled and ugly. She loathes that she lives in this sort of world. No escape from it. It has made her what she is, the sort of creature who would darken a bright thing like Geralt.

“Come here,” she says and tugs at his arm. Loose enough that he could refuse, firm enough that he understands she will not be gentle with him.

He does not refuse. He straddles her lap, thighs bracketing her muscled waist. His mouth is open and wet, and she lets him kiss her, though he doesn’t know how. Her scarred hands swallow the ridges of his hipbones, and Yennefer makes an effort not to feel as though a dark stain spreads under her touch.

When he cries at the cusp of it, she holds and shushes him, smearing her thumbs across tear-streaked cheeks still dirtied from their morning sparring, feeling his skull as fragile as a bird’s egg beneath her hands.

“Little bird,” she whispers against his auburn hair, “stay here in the nest. Stay whole. Stay soft.”

The desperate ache of it burns in the hollow deep inside her where they say a Witcher’s emotions once fixed themselves. Yennefer still feels every one as it is swallowed by the sucking pit in her chest. Pity that she can feel what could have been as it passes her by. Pity that she could have loved him in some gentler life.

* * *

In the morning, she leaves a well-honed dagger beside Geralt’s cot, tacks her flaxen mare, and rides hard for the north.


End file.
